(Don’t panic though; the odds of it happening to you are probably in similar territory to being struck by lightning).
The incident happened about two hours into a flight from Beijing to Melbourne. “As I went to turn around I felt burning on my face,” the woman, who has not been named, told the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB). “I just grabbed my face which caused the headphones to go around my neck.
“I continued to feel burning so I grabbed them off and threw them on the floor. They were sparking and had small amounts of fire.
“As I went to stamp my foot on them the flight attendants were already there with a bucket of water to pour on them. They put them into the bucket at the rear of the plane.”
She said the battery and cover melted into the aircraft floor.
One again it seems lithium-ion batteries were to blame, as they were in the case of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7s that caused such concern the manufacturer had to recall them.
The ATSB has not specified the brand of the headphones involved in this week’s mid-flight explosion. “As the range of products using batteries grows, the potential for in-flight issues increases,” it said in its report detailing the incident.
The ATSB has also issued some guidelines regarding lithium ion battery-powered electrical equipment during flights:
Here are five other types of electrical equipment where electrical products caused fires or were recalled because they were identified as a fire hazard.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall showed that even the biggest reputations can’t guarantee that products meet basic safety standards.
Samsung has had such a successful few years that – at least until that PR disaster – it was widely seen as edging out Apple in the smartphone war.
But its reputation took a major hit after reports emerged that its latest model, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, was prone to catching fire.
However, buying recognised brands is still generally the best way of protecting yourself – not least because any problems, which are incredibly rare, will be quickly spotted and recalls announced. Electrical appliances that cause fires are often cheap, shoddy imports, as seen with the recent spate of e-cigarette fires.
The Samsung and e-cigarette cases are two of the five examples outlined below where electrical products caused fires or were recalled because they were identified as a fire hazard.
Lauded in previews as a game-changing model Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 hit the headlines for rather different reasons when it was launched in September: its batteries were prone to overheating. The South Korean electronics giant issued a mass recall, but even replacement handsets sent out by the company, which has barely put a foot wrong in the mobile market in recent years, failed to resolve the problems.
One replacement Galaxy Note 7 caught fire on a Southwest Airlines plane due to fly from Kentucky to Maryland. “A customer reported smoke emitting from an electronic device,” a Southwest Airlines spokesperson told the BBC. “All customers and crew deplaned safely via the main cabin door.”
Even a second replacement device sent out by the company encountered similar problems. A man in Kentucky said he was “scared to death” when he woke to a bedroom full of smoke, local media said.
Cigarettes were always an obvious fire hazard, but their electronic successors are also a growing cause for concern.
Burns surgeons, fire chiefs and trading standards officers have warned consumers to be careful after a spate of incidents where vaporisers – the chamber in which e-cigarette liquids are turned into vapour – have exploded. Plastic surgeons at Morriston Hospital’s Welsh Centre for Burns and Plastic Surgery in Swansea said they had treated five patients for burns after e-cigarette batteries exploded.
“Before this year we hadn’t seen any injuries like this,” consultant plastic surgeon Dai Nguyen told Sky News. Three of the patients had their devices in their trouser pockets when they exploded.
IFSEC Global reported on the problem back in 2014. In once incident a man in Florida lost part of his tongue and several teeth when an e-cigarette exploded in his mouth. E-cigarettes were also implicated in the death of a woman at a Derbyshire care home in 2013.
West Yorkshire FRS issued the following guidance to users of e-cigarettes in 2014:
More than 500,000 hoverboards have been recalled in the US after multiple reports of the products catching fire.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has received 99 reports of hoverboard battery packs exploding or catching fire. Several people sustained burns to the neck, legs or arms, according to the CPSC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DPXyCaTMnw
Search ‘hoverboard fire’ on YouTube and you’ll find numerous videos showing the curiously named (they don’t hover), two-wheeled motorised scooters emitting smoke and catching fire.
The gadgets have already been banned in several airports, rail stations and college campuses because of safety fears.
Totalling 267,000, a company called Swagway had the most recalled hoverboards, with Keenford’s iMoto hoverboards, Hoverboard LLC’s Powerboard and Razor USA’s Hovertrax also prominent in the list of recalls.
Washing machines account for more house fires than any other electrical appliance. Of all fires caused by product faults washing machines made up 14%, tumble dryers 12% and dishwashers 11%, according to figures from Which Magazine.
The Electrical Safety Council found that the average level of success was only 10 to 20% for product recalls in the UK.
Alarmingly, Which also discovered that 5% of consumers who knew about a product recall decided to continue using the product anyway. Two-thirds contacted the company for a repair or a refund, while a quarter said they stopped using the product or threw it away.
As well as through media reports, consumers can find out about recalls if they’ve registered their purchase. However, consumers are wary of doing so lest they sign themselves up to an influx of “extended warranty” offers.
In March we reported that faulty tumble dryers that were found to be a fire risk could be in use for another nine months after Whirlpool said some repairs might have to wait until January 2017. It had already been five months since the firm revealed that two types of driers – condensed and vented dryers made by Indesit between April 2004 and September 2015 – had allowed dangerous levels of lint to build up against the heating element in tests.
Whirpool risked further anger by advising consumers that they could continue to use the machines so long as they cleaned the lint filter after every cycle and didn’t leave their dryers unattended during operation.
“If you’ve bought an HP or Compaq laptop in the last three years, its battery could be a fire risk,” Which Magazine reported in July 2016.
HP confirmed that batteries supplied over this period have “the potential to overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to customers.” Owners of affected ProBook, Envy, Presario, Pavilion Notebook and other HP and Compaq models were encouraged to stop using their laptops immediately.
You could be at risk, said Which, if you bought an HP or Compaq laptop between March 2013 and August 2015. Which urged consumers to check the barcode on the battery itself (but only after turning off your laptop and disconnecting it from the mains).
If the barcode starts with any combinations listed on the image on the right, then you are advised to visit the HP website to confirm whether your laptop is afflicted with the overheating problem. Batteries validated as faulty will be replaced free of charge by the company.
HP insists, however, that less than 1% of all laptops sold in the above time period are affected.
Download the Fire Safety in 2023 eBook, keeping you up to date with the biggest news and prosecution stories from around the industry. Chapters include important updates such as the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 and an overview of the new British Standard for the digital management of fire safety information.
Plus, we explore the growing risks of lithium-ion battery fires and hear from experts in disability evacuation and social housing.
